Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and Defence

Yes, I do, and I found the excuse for that situation—that the wording of the resolution was partial—to be deeply unsatisfactory and unmoving. The truth is that the debate was about Goldstone and everyone knew that—Goldstone being one of the most respected and distinguished South African judges, with an extremely long pedigree of dealing with matters of civil liberties within his own country and outside it. The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) is no longer in his seat, and I was sorry that he would not take my intervention because I wanted to tell him how much I was going to disagree with him. However, with due deference to him, I must say that to speak for 12 minutes without once mentioning the Goldstone report—the 575 pages of the Goldstone report, which is now the central issue in respect of that region—showed in one's view of the middle east a selectivity that I find difficult to comprehend. I turn now to factual matters. There is a plethora—a litany—of them, but I simply choose 10, all firmly grounded in the sources to which I have referred, and all plain and unassailable facts. On the west bank, there are now 285,000 illegal settlers. There are 200,000 in East Jerusalem, and that does not account for the 200,000 illegal settlers who are not in formal settlements. There are 75,000 housing units planned on the west bank—illegally—as we speak. That is not a resettlement of people, or a diaspora of Britons in the Dordogne; it is the illegal colonisation of another's land. That is the first matter I wanted to mention. Secondly, some 60 per cent. of the west bank is controlled by Israel, much of which is in the so-called area C, which is completely controlled—it is a military zone—along the Jordan river. Some 9.3 per cent. of the land in the west bank is now settled, and there are now 120 unofficial outposts, in which 200,000 people live. Some 400 km of the projected 723 km barrier between these two so-called countries has been completed, and 12 per cent. of the west bank is encompassed illegally within it. Very nearly half a million Palestinians are in the barrier's path and are encompassed or separated from their land as a result. There are 60—not 30, but 60—permanent checkpoints on the west bank. There has been some alleviation, in that they are not always manned now. However, as a riposte to that, there are now 65 flying checkpoints that can be put into effect anywhere. Palestinians are subjected to the added indignity of not knowing where they are going to be stopped at any given time. Thirdly, in East Jerusalem, 420 Palestinian houses have been demolished since 2004. Then we come to the statistics of deprivation. Infant mortality in Israel is 4.2 per 1,000, while on the west bank it is 15.9 per 1,000; in Gaza, it is 18.35 per 1,000. The per capita GDP of Israel is $28,000, while in neighbouring Palestine, it is $2,900. Unemployment in Israel is 6.1 per cent., while on the west bank it is 16 per cent. In Gaza it is 41 per cent.; that accounts for the fact that 70 per cent. of people in Gaza live below the US poverty level and 79 per cent. are in deep poverty. Some 150,000 Palestinians have no running water and 80 per cent. of the water they have is below World Health Organisation standards. That is because the treatment plants were destroyed, almost certainly deliberately, during the invasion of Gaza. As a result of the destruction of the sewage plants, 7 million litres of untreated sewage is poured every day into the sea off Gaza. Furthermore, the width of that sea is now constricted to 3 km, rather than the 20 km agreed at Oslo. I have not even got to Goldstone. The Goldstone report is an enormous indictment of individual acts of cruelty and acts that are undoubtedly crimes against humanity and war crimes. There was deliberate killing of civilians; there were 1,440 deaths in Gaza during the invasion in December last year. Some 431 of those who died were children and 114 were women. White phosphorous is an unassailable fact recorded by the United Nations, which knows that it was used against its own installations; 57 were hit during the invasion of Gaza. The only flour mill operating in Gaza was destroyed on 9 January in an absolutely deliberate and premeditated attack. Chicken farms, on which the people of Gaza overwhelmingly rely for their protein, were destroyed. Some 100,000 birds were destroyed; 60 per cent. of the agricultural land was rendered useless. Some 17 per cent. of the orchards were destroyed. That is the cost of the Israeli invasion of Gaza. Goldstone is unequivocal in his conclusion that there were serious and repeated breaches of the fourth Geneva convention of 1949 and its first protocol. This is not just another piece of foreign policy, but the crucible of injustice. Without a remedy for that injustice, we will never create international peace or a suitable antidote to international terrorism. There is no doubt that in giving vent to this anger, people such as me will be accused of partiality—but Israel is a state, and a prosperous one. It is supported by the most prosperous state and some of the most prosperous institutions in the world. If Israel craves the priceless advantage of international statehood among democratic nations, it must be treated as a state and behave like a state. The Palestinians have no such state; they are denied one. If we deny people a state, our complaint is hollow that their actions do not live up to the status they have been denied. As a Member of Parliament and a lawyer, I simply say this: the offences committed, particularly in Gaza, are international offences against the fourth Geneva convention and its protocol. In this country we are signatories to the convention and under the Geneva Conventions Act 1957 and the Geneva Conventions (Amendment) Act 1995 we have not only a right but a duty to track down, investigate and prosecute those in breach of the convention. We have a duty to do that here. I say now, in so far as one has any voice at all, that those responsible for those acts in Israel and Palestine can no longer travel safely, because internationally, in all the countries that have signed the convention, they are liable to the prosecution that they deserve.